@malfoythegreat I agree with milopenguin on this one. 4-5/6. While the mother Teresa example fits in well with the prompt, it doesn’t fit in with your thesis. Since you’ve gone the whole 9 yards and spin the prompt, stick with your thesis all the way through. Also, I think that it should have been “Not only was Elvis abusing substance,…” instead of “Not only was Elvis substance abusing,…”
About my essay, I didn’t use any historical example because my thesis centres about “The consequences of lack of privacy in the age of social media”. I felt that the historical examples wouldn’t fit in. Also, the Benedict Arnold example seems to have less to do with lack of privacy and more to do with lack of national security. Idk. Duly noted on the Bellum case though. I should have been clearer about that since I thought that saying that she was Twitter-obsessed was enough.
@milopenguin Thanks for the compliment. First time one of my essay got a 5-6.
@malfoythegreat 5/6 Everyone gave you nice writing tips, so I’ll nitpick grammar. If nothing else, it might help on the mp writing section, haha.
“Gatsby is surrounded by fame and wealth…” You use present tense here, but then switch to past for the rest of the paragraph.
“What was one an innocent, young singer, became the depressessed, obese drug abuser that Elvis Presley was later known as in the 1970s.” I think it should be “Who was once a… singer” instead of “what”.
“Mother Teresa attempted to feed and care for those under poverty in India.” *in poverty
“Her goals were to give them salvation from the painful life they were under, as well as call attention to their needs…” I don’t see how one can be “under” a life…maybe “the painful life they were living” or “painful conditions”.
Can people have too much enthusiasm?
As the old platitude says, “Everything in moderation.” Enthusiasm has limits to its usefulness beyond which it can spawn recklessness and emotionally biased decisions. Hence, too much enthusiasm is indeed problematic.
For instance, in the Gilded Age by Mark Twain, Alex Blaine is an industrious young man who easily becomes enthused by often fraudulent investment opportunities. Due to his ingenuous nature, Alex sinks his money into any project someone can sell him. Consequently, he quickly loses his fortune to shaky investments such as gold mining and tentative railroads. Alex’s enthusiasm is also his bane-- in making misinformed decisions on enthusiastic whims, he cannot make a dependable living and is plagued by financial insecurity. Thus, excessive enthusiasm is found to hurt a person’s juudgement and ability to function in the real world.
As another example, some sports fans have been found to be so excessively enthusiastic in supporting their team that they have perpetrated violence an vandalism upon their team’s loss. Such enthusiasm turned sour has cost some people lives, not to mention a significant amount of property damage. Here, again, one sees that too much enthusiasm can ultimately be dangerous.
Thus, enthusiasm should have its limits. When overly zealous, it clouds judgement and causes the enthusiastic individual, and his surroundings, only harm.
You guys, with this essay, I rushed to get a conclusion down in time, but then I realized I had enough time to write the last sentence for the second paragraph. So would it be ok to, like, write that sentence somewhere below the conclusion and attach it to the second paragraph via asterisk or a little arrow, or would that look really confusing/ unprofessional and possibly lower my score?
@clpony7 I’m pretty sure that that’s acceptable. The readers are instructed to treat our essays as drafts, after all. As long as the added part are still written inside the box, it’s probably OK.
4-5/6. It’s such a pity because you almost got a 5-6/6, too. Your first two paragraphs are awesome, aside from that “For instance” thingy. You need to set aside some time to prepare some soother transitions beforehand, btw. Anyway, although your first 2 paragraphs are great, the quality kind of drops in the last two paragraphs because of the time constraint, I guess. The second example isn’t analysed at all in comparison with the first example, making it into an info dump. Your conclusion is OK, I guess. Not great, but not bad, either. With enough practice, I bet that all of these shortcomings can be gotten rid of. Fight!
I’ll post my essay tonight (It’s 9:30 in the morning here).
OK, not going to lie, I had to stop and research for this prompt because it threw me into such a stump I panicked and didn’t know what to do. So, do consider this one un-timed:
Prompt: Are photographs straightforward representations of real life, or are they artistic creations reflecting the photographer’s point of view?
Ansel Adams once said: “You don’t take a photograph, you made it.” More than just a recreation of real life, photographs capture the emotion, the soul of the photographer, of the subjects, of the people at that moment in time. This notion has been well-illustrated through two famous pictures: Tank Man and Pale Blue Dot.
Widely considered to be one of the most important photographs of the 20th century, Tank Man demonstrates the undefeatable fighting spirit of the Chinese people against the oppressive regime to the world. Taken place one day after the infamous Tiananmen Massacre, the incident concerned a young man who stood directly in the way of a column of tanks. Despite the very real possibility that the tanks would run him over like they did to thousands of protesters in the massacre, the man refused to budge, refused to move away. Against all attempts to “vapourize” the incident and every photographic evidences of it, the image of a lone man standing up in peaceful protest against a violent force sends a powerful message of human rights to people everywhere on the world.
Taken in 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 in its final tour around the Solar System, the picture Pale Blue Dot perfectly frames the image of a pale blue dot – the Earth we are living in, amidst an expand of never-ending empty space, thereby conveying the indescribable feelings flowing through the veins and arteries of every scientists at NASA at that moment in time. That tiny 0.12-pixel-worth of a blue dot is our home, our only home. On which stacked with 6 billion worth of people, with all of the world’s cruelties and hatred, of its passion and love, that pale blue dot stands alone, bright and hopeful in an inhospitable universe. On that one dot was the Tiananmen Massacre with its bloody end. On that one dot was the Tank Man with his message of peace and human rights. On that one dot are all of humanity’s despair and hope, births and deaths. We are but a small stage, alone in this universe. No one but us will save us from ourselves. Through the picture, NASA underscores our responsibility to live, to be kind, to cherish that pale blue dot – the only home we have ever known.
As demonstrated by the two pictures mentioned above, photographs are not only moments frozen in time, but are also preserved life – the emotions of the people. In the word of Brigitte Bardot: “A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.”
Conclusion, the Random Number God hates me. At this rate, I have a feeling that I’ll get another curveball comes October…
Also, do I have to underline the name of the pictures in the real test? And, “On that one dot are all of humanity’s despair and hope, births and deaths”, should that be “are” or “is”?
Well, this will probably be the last essay I write before taking the SAT tomorrow morning. You guys helped me improve a lot and I really appreciate it. Wish me luck!!!
Prompt: Do people place too much emphasis on winning?
Winning is often given too much emphasis in our society today. Instead of glorifying good sportmanship, society pressures people to always “go for the gold”. This attitude often leads to unnecessary stress and pressure on the competing individual.
This phenomenon is often seen in the world of professional sports. Athletes are sometimes so pressured to win that they resort to taking steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. A certain drug more commonly abused by bicyclists, triemphetalene, has even caused death due to cardiac failure. Such a scandal occurred during the 2007 Tour de France, when Victor Dupont, upon crossing the finish line in 1st place, dropped dead, and was found to have triemphetalene in his blood stream. Thus, under the intense desire and pressure to win- what is really a mere ribbon or gold medal- people are driven to undertake unfair, unsafe, and even life-threatening measures.
Another instance where winning is placed above all else is academics. Students are put under such high levels of stress to “win” on their exams, that the stress levels of the average high-school student are tantamount to those of psychiatric patients of the 1950s. The notion that a victory is worth sacrificing one’s own well-being is evidently harmful to students as much as it is to any competitive athlete.
Thus, regarding a metaphorical gold medal as the most important and valuable achievement a person can attain is highly detrimental to people’s well-being.
Are we supposed to skip a line between paragraphs? I’ve seen some sample essays do it and some don’t.
@Synonyms I feel like this would be a 3, sorry. It’s just I really didn’t feel a relevant thesis, and even though the prompt is inherently a bit hard to defend, you seemed not to have taken either side of the question but went off developing your own idea. So, the prompt is "straightforward representations of , or are they ". You basically say that photographs preserve life and emotions, which is neither. I’ve had essays like that too, where you reread the essay and the thesis seems a bit off topic, so we really need to avoid that on the real thing. If you didn’t have time to research, the first thing that comes to mind would be an example like war photography, where people risk their lives as much as soldiers do to preserve a realistic account of the war.
“On which stacked with 6 billion worth of people, with all of the world’s cruelties and hatred, of its passion and love, that pale blue dot stands alone, bright and hopeful in an inhospitable universe…No one but us will save us from ourselves.” Nice development, but I’m thinking completely out of place for the SAT.
It’s a good essay, otherwise.
I’d assume you have to italicize all titles, but I’m asking the question as much as you are, really. “All” takes “are” for plural, so I think “are” would be right.
@clpony7 It’s a 4/6 this time. The second example is too generic and short. Add something about cheating and/or the suicide rate of students in Korea. The conclusion is a bit abrupt, which I assume is because of the lack of time.
Yeah, I know that the thesis really doesn’t have much to do with the prompt, but I really, really, didn’t know what to talk about, so I spin the prompt. Though I think I may have gone overboard. The example essay for this prompt in the Tom Clemens book didn’t help one bit. It’s even worse at not relating to the prompt than mine is. So, really, I still have no idea what to write if you meet this prompt again.
Don’t skip a line. Good luck tomorrow! Don’t panic. Once you’ve got your score back, it’d be great if you can post your essay score here for reference.
Sorry, I’ve been busy. I’ll give you guys feedback later this week!
Hope all went well with your SAT @clpony7 !!! I am sure you did great!! Sorry for the lack of assignments guys, I have been so busy with testing and homework! Hopefully I can post soon…also hope all is well with you all! @milopenguin @Synonyms @clpony7 